animals

The horror stories emerging from Zimbabwe following its economic collapse and hyperinflation may provide a glimpse of one possible future for a post-Peak Oil world. An article published today illustrates how desperate the hunger is becoming inside the country. Keep in mind that the government has taken totalitarian control of all the media and there probably many even more terrible happenings going on.

From the article:

Pets are being slaughtered for meat in shortage-stricken Zimbabwe and record numbers of animals have been surrendered to shelters or abandoned by owners no longer able to feed them, animal welfare activists say.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it could not feed surrendered animals or find them new homes and was being forced to kill them and destroy the corpses.

Animals, like people, are being hard hit by Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, with official inflation of more than 7,600 percent, the highest in the world. Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25,000 percent and the International Monetary Fund has forecast it will reach 100,000 percent by the end of the year.

Just for your own personal reference, remember that dogs (and other pets) can eat a fairly varied diet (i.e. don't panic if you run out of Purina).

Who, me? I didn’t eat those strawberries out of your garden!

We will have no trouble feeding our dog after Peak Oil…

The recent pet food scare has led many people to start cooking for their pets. Not surprisingly, pet food companies and veterinarians are warning of the dangers of trying to feed your own pet – the former for fear of profit loss and the latter for liability reasons. However, just as we humans used to be capable of procuring our own food, so too were our dogs and cats.

Granted, there are dangers to avoid when making pet food, but they require either large amounts of a particular item or complete lapse of common sense. For instance, while trying to turn your dog into a vegetarian is possible (with very careful nutritional balance), a meat-free diet causes cats to go blind and eventually die due to taurine deficiency. There are also many foods that pets shouldn’t eat in large quantities. For dogs, these include chocolate, onions, garlic, and macadamia nuts. With the exception of the nuts, the quantities required to do harm are fairly significant: 0.5 lb. chocolate, 1 lb. onions, or 1 lb. garlic for a 20-lb. dog.

Adjusting to life without TV

Trained farm dogs were essential in the past and will be so again in the future. Dogs help with herding livestock, fighting off predators, warning against intruders, and (of course) entertaining the children.

Our dog is a Catahoula (at least in part), although we didn’t know that when we got him from the animal shelter in Florida. Catahoulas are dogs typically trained for herding cattle and wrangling wild boar, and make fabulous hunting and guard dogs. We need to learn how to train him for these sort of activities eventually, but for now our main problem is trying to get him enough exercise with on our small suburban lot – they typically need 1 hour of free running time every day! And when he tries going over the fence at every squirrel and small dog, it’s tough to keep him contained. :)